Well, well, well... I was a little jealous last month when I saw at least two Patrick Berry puzzles go by without getting to review them, but here's another one! Yay!
First of all, I love the theme. Each Tom Swifty-ish clue ending with a punny prison answer made me smile. I think my favorite might be 42A: "I merely went to my yoga class, and now I'm ____!" (DOINGASTRETCH). And I also enjoyed the bonus fill - SHIV (54A: Pen knife?), which took me quite a while to get!
And before I go any farther, how funny is it that ASOF (48D: Since) is in the puzzle again today?! Hah! Well, I'm giving it one more pass, but I swear, if it's in again tomorrow, that's it!
Some nice downs today, with EVIDENT (4D: Unmistakable), DISAVOW (10D: Claim no knowledge of), AMATEURISH (11D: Ineptly done), and INITIALIZE (25D: Format, as a disk). And even with five theme answers, there's still room for a couple nice non-theme Acrosses: BORDEAUX (20A: Where the biennial Vinexpo is held) (I want to go to there!), and UTTERING (50A: Giving voice to). There's a little crosswordsy crossing in the NW with OLEO and OLAV (14A: Name shared by five Norwegian kings), but at least the latter is clued with a little trivia.
All in all, a high quality Wednesday!
- Horace
9:01
ReplyDeleteA cute puzzle with some very nice stuff in it. INITIALIZE took a long time to come back to my active memory. Boy, I haven't had to do that since the 1990s!
18:25
ReplyDeleteSame here with INITIALIZE, and BORDEAUX, but I'd go when the festival wasn't happening; no one likes a festival, even one with vin. It was interestingn to see OSSIE Davis in there instead of the ubiquitous Geena.